In the latter part of 1857, as the army (whose supposed purpose was to drive the "Mormons" from their homes or exterminate them) was nearing Utah, Anson and his two sons went forth to assist in their people's defense. Anson and his son Chester assisted in building fortifications in Echo Canyon, and his son Vasco was doing scout duty in the region of Green River. In the spring of 1858, when preparations were in progress for abandoning homes and burning them if necessary rather than have them possessed by the enemy, Anson stored four thousand pounds of flour at Payson, to be available for the support of his family, and later removed his family to the shore of Utah lake, below Provo. Before leaving their home they prepared it and their other buildings for burning at a moment's notice. Fortunately that extremity was never reached, for the family returned and reoccupied their home on the 4th of July following.
About the 1st of October, 1858, Anson received a visit from his brother Josiah, whose home was at Fillmore. After a short stay he set out to return to his home, accompanied by a friend named Samuel Brown. When near Chicken Creek in Juab County, on their homeward journey, they were ambushed by Indians, and both killed. When their bodies were found on the 15th of October they had been partially devoured by coyotes.
On April 9, 1861, Anson showed his faith by complying with the Bible rule requiring a man to marry and care for his brother's widow, by taking to wife Henrietta Williams Call, whose husband was killed by Indians as already mentioned. She had six children and he reared them to maturity, treating them as well as his own offspring.
At the general conference in October, 1864, Anson, in connection with others, was given a mission to establish a colony near the Colorado river. The merchants of Salt Lake City had such difficulty in securing the necessary supply of merchandise, either from the east or from California, owing to the long distance it had to be hauled in wagons and the limited season during which the roads were passable, that the idea occurred to some one that, if shipped by steamboat up the Colorado river to as high a point as possible and there stored in a warehouse the cost of freighting might be materially reduced. It was thought too that immigrants might be brought to Utah by the same route with advantage. The merchants and others organized a company to build and own a warehouse on the Colorado river, and they employed Anson to act as their agent in carrying into effect a part of this scheme. He accordingly started about the 1st of November with a company to locate a road to the most suitable place on the Colorado river, and there build a landing and warehouse. This he did to the satisfaction of those who employed him, and returned home in March, 1865. After remaining home about one month he went again to Call's Landing on the Colorado river, accompanied by his wife Mary, and returned two and a half months later.
On the 4th of August, 1867, Anson's eldest son, Anson Vasco, while returning from a mission to Europe, upon which he had been absent nearly three and a half years, died at Rock Creek, on the Laramie Plains, four hundred and twenty-three miles east of Salt Lake. He was a young man of great promise, and his death was keenly felt by his family and friends.
On the 28th of October, 1870, Anson accompanied by his wife Mary and sister-in-law, Mrs. Hannah Holbrook, started on a visit to their numerous relatives in Ohio, Vermont and other places in the east, from which they returned home in January, 1871.
In 1872 Anson accompanied the Palestine party, of which President George A. Smith was the leader, to England, and spent five months traveling in Great Britain and Ireland.
When the Davis County Stake of Zion was organized in 1877 Anson became counselor to President Wm. R. Smith, his son Chester succeeding him as Bishop of Bountiful, formerly North Canyon Ward.
The later years of Anson's life were spent in comparative peace and quietude, largely on his farm in Davis County, where, surrounded by his numerous family, he set an example of thrift and industry. But, though relieved of those strenuous duties of pioneering that occupied so much of his time in earlier years, his time was still to a very great extent devoted to laboring for the public welfare, but chiefly in Davis County, where, as a member of the Stake presidency, he was looked up to as a safe and reliable leader, who was just as ready to sacrifice his own interests and devote his influence and energies to the public weal as he had been during his more vigorous days.
He retained the use of his faculties up to the last, and died at eighty years of age, honored and respected by all who knew him, leaving to his numerous posterity an untarnished record of service and devotion to the cause of Truth.